Syracuse Stage opens its season with fast-moving 'The 39 Steps'

Courtesy of Roger Mastroianni/Syracuse StageIn this scene from "The 39 Steps," policemen Joe Foust, left, and Rob Johansen press for answers from Sarah Nealis, as Pamela, and Nick Sandys, as Richard Hannay, in the Syracuse Stage production.

Syracuse Stage opens its 2010-2011 season with the quirky comedy “The 39 Steps.” Mystery lurks within the play. Step by step, we will guide you without giving away any surprises.

It tells the story of Richard Hannay, an ordinary man who, after gunshots ring out in a crowded theater, finds himself at the center of a deadly plot involving spies, assassins, military secrets and an international conspiracy.

The plot revolves around government secrets known as the 39 steps, which is a classic Hitchcock “MacGuffin.” He used the term to describe an ambiguous narrative device that drives the characters and holds the viewers’ attention.

Four actors follow the film’s story line almost scene-for-scene. Nick Sandys plays the dashing Hannay. Sarah Nealis plays the main female roles. Joe Foust and Rob Johansen, billed as Clown 1 and Clown 2, portray the other characters as well as some of the props.

Courtesy of Syracuse StageJoe Foust and Rob Johansen in the Syracuse Stage production of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps."

Hitchcock’s film is based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel “The Thirty-Nine Steps.”

Making the play more derivative, this version by Patrick Barlow is a direct adaptation of a play written by British playwrights Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon. It featured just two actors.

Corble and Dimon toured their play, created in 1995, in theaters and village halls in the North of England and in Scotland.

Syracuse audiences won’t see the exact show as played in Cleveland, even though the actors and director are the same.

“There was probably a moment here and there that never worked as smoothly or cleanly or surprisingly as we would have liked,” Amster says. He will revisit the show with his cast to refine those elements that fell flat in Cleveland.

“We’ve had three weeks (in Cleveland) to learn what works and what doesn’t,” Sandys says in his English accent. “It’s just getting honed, and it’s getting funnier.”

Courtesy of Syracuse StageSarah Nealis and Nick Sandys in the Syracuse Stage production of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps."

“The 39 Steps” premiered in London in August 2006, won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2007 and won two Tony Awards when it moved to Broadway in 2008.

“It was very tired,” Amster says of the Broadway production. He saw the play in its final week. “I wanted to rescue it from what I saw in New York, because I knew that it could be much more satisfying.”

The play features numerous comedic references to other Hitchcock films.

“The names of those movies are iconic and belong in everybody’s cultural soup,” Amster says. Even people who aren’t Hitchcock fanatics will get most of the inside jokes.

The clowns often have only seconds to change their costumes. Sometimes they play multiple characters and props onstage simultaneously.

“The backstage choreography is probably twice as dazzling as what you see onstage,” Amster says.

“There’s always somebody changing and having three dresses and just ripping clothes off, sticking facial hair on and trying to get makeup changed,” Sandys says. “I’m occasionally very glad not to be backstage.”

Since Sandys plays only Hannay, he has just one costume and spends very little time offstage. Still, he says that doesn’t mean his part is easy.

“I run about two miles during each show in a three-piece suit and usually an overcoat,” he says, “so I’m losing a lot of weight.”

Sandys, charming and funny even when not in character, is unique in the cast in less obvious ways.

“I am the only real mustache in the show,” he says. Hannay’s pencil-thin mustache plays a major role in the show’s early chase scenes. “I’m running constantly for about an hour, I’m sweating because I’m wearing a full tweed suit, and I am kissing women. The last thing I wanted was for my mustache to fall off.”

Both Amster and Sandys credit costume designer Tracy Dorman for creating a rigged costume that can be changed quickly. Sandys also mentions Dorman’s talents, referring to the “beautifully tailored” suit that makes him sweat.

Dorman designed the costumes for Syracuse Stage’s production of “Little Women” last year.

The director and cast watched Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” before they took on the play. Amster says it was important to get an idea of which jokes might go over people’s heads if they hadn’t seen the film.

“There’s something about the style of the mid-1930s thriller,” Amster says, “black-and-white and all, and a style of acting that we tried to embrace in our work as we were lovingly satirizing it.”

Sandys says the cast put on shows for schoolchildren in Cleveland, and they embraced the imaginative nature of the play in ways adults don’t immediately realize.

“When we put a biplane onstage, and the audience is asked to fill out the full picture, the kids go there naturally,” Sandys says. “If you do a film, you get a real plane, and the audience doesn’t invest in the same way.”

Amster says the show is a good way to get out of the cold. “Any kind of physical exercise keeps the body warm, and I can’t think of a more delightful one than laughter.”

For Syracuse Stage’s Prologue series, a cast member will participate in a 20-minute conversation with the audience one hour before each show.

“I find that the audiences in Syracuse are surprisingly sophisticated in their responses,” Amster says. He knows because he directed “This Wonderful Life” at Syracuse Stage in 2009 and “The Fantasticks” in 2008.

On Sunday, the cast will participate in a talk-back session after the 7 p.m. show.

The show’s run has a happy hour, one hour before the Oct. 28 show.

A certified fight director, Sandys looks forward to an improvised scene in which he wrestles a dummy. “It’s literally just my imagination and this toy,” he says. “I do hurt myself doing that.”

Sandys has more than one favorite moment in the play. “I get to kiss Sarah Nealis at least three times,” he says. “That’s nice.”

Sandys may be joking, but Amster says there’s much more to “The 39 Steps” than pure silliness. “There’s something about being in a darkened room with a whole bunch of strangers and laughing at the same things that reminds us that we’re all on this blue marble together,” Amster says. “It becomes more of a spiritual experience than you expect.”

The details

What: “The 39 Steps.”

When: Today to Nov. 7.

Where: Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St.

Tickets: Adults: $25 to $48. Discounts for 40 and younger, 18 and younger and students. To purchase, call 443-3275 or go to Syracuse Stage.